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Charlemont

W >> W. Gilmore Simms >> Charlemont




"Pshaw! you speak like a boy yet. This is schoolhouse philosophy."

"And very good philosophy too. I'm thinking the schoolhouse and
the play-ground is pretty much a sort of world to itself. It's no
bad show of what the world without is; and one of its first lessons
and that which I think the truest, is the necessity of having a
trial of strength with every new-comer; until we learn where he's
to stand in the ranks, number one or number nothing. You see there
just the same passions, though, perhaps, on a small scale, that
we afterward find to act upon the big world of manhood. There, we
fight for gingerbread, for marbles, top and ball; not unfrequently
because we venture to look at our neighbor's sweetheart; and
sometimes, quite as often, for the love of the thing and to know
where the spirit and the sinew are. Well, isn't that just what the
big world does after us? As men, we fight for bigger playthings, for
pounds, where before we fought for pence--for gold where before we
fought for coppers--for command of a country instead of a schoolyard;
for our wives instead of sweethearts, and through sheer deviltry
and the love of the thing, when there's nothing else to fight about,
just the same as we did in boyhood."

"But even were you to prove, and I to admit, that it is so, just
as you say, that would not prove the practice to be a jot more
proper, or a jot less brutal."

"Begging your pardon, Bill, it proves it to be right and proper,
and accordingly, if brutal, a becoming brutality. If this is
the natural disposition of boys and men, don't you see that this
schoolboy licking and fighting is a necessary part of one's moral
education? It learns one to use his strength, his limbs and sinews,
as he may be compelled to use them, in self-defence, in every future
day of his life. You know very well what follows a boy at school
who doesn't show himself ready to bung up his neighbor's eye the
moment he sees it at a cross-twinkle. He gets his own bunged up.
Well, it's just the same thing when he gets to be a man. If you have
a dispute with your enemy, I don't say that you shouldn't reason
with him, but I do say that your reasoning will have very little
effect upon him unless he sees that you are able and willing
to write it in black and blue upon his sheepskin. And what better
way could you find to show him THAT, unless by giving him word and
blow, the blow first, as being the most impressive argument?"

"You must have been dreaming of these subjects last night." said
the grave cousin--"you seem to have them unusually well cut and
dried."

"I haven't been dreaming about it, Bill, but I confess I've been
thinking about it very seriously all night, and considering all
the arguments that I thought you would make use of against it.
I haven't quite done with my discussion, which I took up entirely
for your benefit."

"Indeed! you are quite philanthropic before breakfast; but let us
hear you?"

"You talk of the brutality of fighting--now in what does that
brutality consist? Is it not in breaking noses, kicking shins,
bunging up eyes, and making one's neighbor feel uncomfortable in
thigh, and back, and arms, and face, and skin, and indeed, everywhere,
where a big fist or a cowhide shoe may plant a buffet or a bruise?"

"Quite a definition, Ned."

"I'm glad you think so: for if it's brutal in the boy to do so to
his schoolmate, is it less so for the schoolmaster to do the same
thing to the boy that's under his charge? He bruises my skin, makes
my thighs, and arms, and back, and legs, and face, and hands, ache,
and if my definition be a correct one, he is quite as brutal as
the boys who do the same thing to one another."

"He does it because the boys deserve it, and in order to make them
obedient and active."

"And when did a boy not deserve a flogging when he gets licked by
his companion?" demanded the other triumphantly--"and don't the
licking make him obedient, and don't the kicking make him active?
By gemini, I've seen more activity from one chap's legs under the
quick application of another's feet, than I think anything else
could produce, unless it were feet made expressly for such a purpose
and worked by a steam-engine. That might make them move something
faster, but I reckon there would be no need in such a case of any
such improvement."

"What are you driving at, Ned Hinkley? This is by far the longest
argument, I think, that you've ever undertaken. You must be moved
by some very serious considerations."

"I am, and you'll see what I'm driving at after a little while.
I'm not fond of arguing, you know, but I look upon the fighting
principle as a matter to be known and believed in, and I wish to
make clear to you my reasons for believing in it myself. You don't
suppose I'd put down the fiddle for a talk at any time if the
subject was not a serious one?"

"Give way--you have the line."

"About the brutality of fighting then, there's another thing to
be said. Fighting produces good feeling--that is to say supposing
one party fairly to have licked another."

"Indeed--that's new."

"And true too, Bill Hinkley. It cures the sulks. It lets off steam.
It's like a thunderstorm that comes once in a while, and drives
away the clouds, and clears the skies until all's blue again."

"Black and blue."

"No! what was black becomes blue. Chaps that have been growling at
each other for weeks and months lose their bad blood--"

"From the nostrils!"

"Yes, from the nostrils. It's a sort of natural channel, and runs
freely from that quarter. The one crows and the other runs and there's
an end of the scrape and the sulks. The weaker chap, feeling his
weakness, ceases to be impudent; the stronger, having his power
acknowledged, becomes the protector of the weak. Each party falls
into his place, and so far from the licking producing bad feeling
it produces good feeling and good humor; and I conclude that one
half of the trouble in the world, the squabbles between man and
man, woman and woman, boy and boy--nay, between rival nations--is
simply because your false and foolish notions of brutality and
philanthropy keep them from coming to the scratch as soon as they
should. They hang off, growling and grumbling, and blackguarding,
and blaspheming, when, if they would only take hold, and come to
an earnest grapple, the odds would soon show themselves--broken
heads and noses would follow--the bad blood would run, and as soon
as each party found his level, the one being finally on his back,
peace would ensue, and there would be good humor for ever after,
or at least until the blood thickened again. I think there's reason
in my notion. I was thinking it over half the night. I've thought
of it oftentimes before. I've never yet seen the argument that's
strong enough to tumble it."

"Your views are certainly novel, Ned, if not sound. You will excuse
me if I do not undertake to dispute them this morning. I give in,
therefore, and you may congratulate yourself upon having gained a
triumph if not a convert?"

"Stop, stop, William Hinkley: you don't suppose I've done all this
talking only to make a convert or to gain a triumph?"

"Why, that's your object in fighting, why not in arguing?"

"Well, that's the object of most persons when they dispute, I know;
but it is not mine. I wish to make a practical application of my
doctrine."

"Indeed! who do you mean to fight now?"

"It's not for me to fight, it's for you."

"Me!"

"Yes; you have the preference by rights, though if you don't--and
I'm rather sorry to think, as I told you at the start, that the
only fault I had to find with you is that you're not a fighter--I
must take your place and settle the difference."

William Hinkley turned upon the speaker. The latter had laid down
the violin, having, in the course of the argument, broken all its
strings; and he stood now, unjacketed, and still in the chamber,
where the two young men had been sleeping, almost in the attitude
of one about to grapple with an antagonist. The serious face of him
whose voice had been for war--his startling position--the unwonted
eagerness of his eye, and the ludicrous importance which he attached
to the strange principle which he had been asserting--conquered for
a moment the graver mood of his love-sick companion, and he laughed
outright at his pugnacious cousin. The latter seemed a little
offended.

"It's well you can laugh at such things, Bill Hinkley, but I can't.
There was a time when every mother's son in Kentucky was a man,
and could stand up to his rack with the best. If he couldn't keep
the top place, he went a peg lower; but he made out to keep the
place for which he was intended. Then, if a man disliked his neighbor
he crossed over to him and said so, and they went at it like men,
and as soon as the pout was over they shook hands, and stood side
by side, and shoulder to shoulder, like true friends, in every
danger, and never did fellows fight better against Indians and
British than the same two men, that had lapped muscles, and rolled
in the grain together till you couldn't say whose was whose, and
which was which, till the best man jumped up, and shook himself,
and gave the word to crow. After that it was all peace and good
humor, and they drank and danced together, and it didn't lessen
a man in his sweetheart's eyes, though he was licked, if he could
say he had stood up like a man, and was downed after a good hug,
because he couldn't help it. Now, there's precious little of that.
The chap that dislikes his fellow, hasn't the soul to say it out,
but he goes aside and sneers and snickers, and he whispers things
that breed slanders, and scandals, and bad blood, until there's no
trusting anybody; and everything is full of hate and enmity--but
then it's so peaceful! Peaceful, indeed! as if there was any peace
where there is no confidence, and no love, and no good feeling
either for one thing or another."

"Really, Ned, it seems to me you're indignant without any occasion.
I am tempted to laugh at you again."

"No, don't. You'd better not."

"Ha! ha! ha! I can not help it, Ned; so don't buffet me. You forced
me into many a fight when I was a boy, for which I had no stomach;
I trust you will not pummel me yourself because the world has grown
so hatefully pacific. Tell me, in plain terms, who I am to fight
now."

"Who! who but Stevens?--this fellow Stevens. He's your enemy, you
say--comes between you and your sweetheart--between you and your
own mother--seems to look down upon you--speaks to you as if he
was wiser, and better, and superior in every way--makes you sad
and sulky to your best friends--you growl and grumble at him--you
hate him--you fear him--"

"Fear him!"

"Yes, yes, I say fear him, for it's a sort of fear to skulk off
from your mother's house to avoid seeing him--"

"What, Ned, do you tell me that--do you begrudge me a place with
you here, my bed, my breakfast?"

"Begrudge! dang it, William Hinkley, don't tell me that, unless you
want me to lay heavy hand on your shoulder!"--and the tears gushed
into the rough fellow's eyes as he spoke these words, and he turned
off to conceal them.

"I don't mean to vex you, Ned, but why tell me that I skulk--that
I fear this man?"

"Begrudge!" muttered the other.

"Nay, forgive me; I didn't mean it. I was hasty when I said so;
but you also said things to provoke me. Do you suppose that I fear
this man Stevens?"

"Why don't you lick him then, or let him lick you, and bring the
matter to an ending? Find out who's the best man, and put an end
to the growling and the groaning. As it now stands you're not the
same person--you're not fit company for any man. You scarcely talk,
you listen to nobody. You won't fish, you won't hunt: you're sulky
yourself and you make other people so!"

"I'm afraid, Ned, it wouldn't much help the matter even if I were
to chastise the stranger."

"It would cure him of his impudence. It would make him know how to
treat you; and if the rest of your grievance comes from Margaret
Cooper, there's a way to end that too."

"How! you wouldn't have me fight her?" said William Hinkley, with
an effort to smile.

"Why, we may call it fighting," said the advocate for such wholesale
pugnacity, "since it calls for quite as much courage sometimes to
face one woman as it does to face three men. But what I mean that
you should do with her is to up and at her. Put the downright
question like a man 'will you?' or 'won't you?' and no more beating
about the bush. If she says 'no!' there's no more to be said,
and if I was you after that, I'd let Stevens have her or the d--l
himself, since I'm of the notion that no woman is fit for me if
she thinks me not fit for her. Such a woman can't be worth having,
and after that I wouldn't take her as a gracious gift were she to
be made twice as beautiful. The track's before you, William Hinkley.
Bring the stranger to the hug, and Margaret Cooper too, if she'll
let you. But, at all events, get over the grunting and the growling,
the sulky looks, and the sour moods. They don't become a man who's
got a man's heart, and the sinews of a man."

William Hinkley leaned against the fireplace with his head resting
upon his hand. The other approached him.

"I don't mean to say anything, Bill, or even to look anything,
that'll do you hurt. I'm for bringing your trouble to a short cut.
I've told you what I think right and reasonable, and for no other
man in Kentucky would I have taken the pains to think out this
matter as I have done. But you or I must lick Stevens."

"You forget, Ned. Your eagerness carries you astray. Would you beat
a man who offers no resistance?"

"Surely not."

"Stevens is a non-combatant. If you were to slap John Cross on one
cheek he'd turn you the other. He'd never strike you back."

"John Cross and Stevens are two persons. I tell you the stranger
WILL fight. I'm sure of it. I've seen it in his looks and actions."

"Do you think so?"

"I do; I'm sure of it. But you must recollect besides, that
John Cross is a preacher, already sworn in, as I may say. Stevens
is only a beginner. Besides, John Cross is an old man; Stevens, a
young one. John Cross don't care a straw about all the pretty girls
in the country. He works in the business of souls, not beauties,
and it's very clear that Stevens not only loves a pretty girl, but
that he's over head and heels in love with your Margaret--"

"Say no more. If he will fight, Ned Hinkley, he shall fight!"

"Bravo, Bill--that's all that I was arguing for--that's all that
I want. But you must make at Margaret Cooper also."

"Ah! Ned, there I confess my fears."

"Why, what are you afraid of?"

"Rejection!"

"Is that worse than this suspense--this anxiety--this looking
out from morning till night for the sunshine, and this constant
apprehension of the clouds--this knowing not what to be about--this
sulking--this sadding--this growling--this grunting--this muling--this
moping--this eternal vinegar-face and ditchwater-spirit?"

"I don't know, Ned, but I confess my weakness--my want of courage
in this respect!"

"Psho! the bark's worse always than the bite. The fear worse than
the danger! Suspense is the very d--l! Did you ever hear of the
Scotch parson's charity? He prayed that God might suspend Napoleon
over the very jaws of hell--but 'Oh, Lord!' said he, 'dinna let
him fa' in!' To my mind, mortal lips never uttered a more malignant
prayer!"






CHAPTER XVIII.

TRAILING THE FOX.





This dialogue was broken by a summons to the breakfast-table. We
have already intimated that while the hateful person of Stevens was
an inmate of his own house, William Hinkley remained, the better
portion of his time, at that of his cousin. It was not merely that
Stevens was hateful to his sight, but such was the devotion of his
father and mother to that adventurer, that the young man passed
with little notice from either, or if he incurred their attention
at all, it was only to receive their rebuke. He had not been able
to disguise from them his dislike to Stevens. This dislike showed
itself in many ways--in coldness, distance, silence--a reluctance
to accord the necessary civilities, and in very unequivocal glances
of hostility from the eyes of the jealous young villager.

Such offences against good-breeding were considered by them as so
many offences against God himself, shown to one who was about to
profess his ministry; and being prepared to see in Brother Stevens
an object of worth and veneration only, they lacked necessarily all
that keenness of discrimination which might have helped somewhat
to qualify the improprieties of which they believed their son to be
guilty. Of his causes of jealousy they had no suspicion, and they
shared none of his antipathies. He was subject to the daily lecture
from the old man, and the nightly exhortation and expostulation
of the old woman Tho latter did her spiriting gently. The former
roared and thundered. The mother implored and kissed--the father
denounced and threatened. The one, amidst the faults of her you
which she reproved, could see his virtues; she could also see that
he was suffering--she knew not why--as well as sinning; the other
could only see an insolent, disobedient boy who was taking airs upon
himself, flying in the face of his parents, and doomed to perish
like the sons of Eli, unless by proving himself a better manager
than Eli, he addressed himself in time to the breaking in of the
unruly spirit whose offences promised to be so heinous. It was
not merely from the hateful sight of his rival, or the monotonous
expostulation of his mother, that the poor youth fled; it was sometimes
to escape the heavily chastening hand of his bigoted father.

These things worked keenly and constantly in the mind of William
Hinkley. They acquired additional powers of ferment from the
coldness of Margaret Cooper, and from the goadings of his cousin.
Naturally one of the gentlest of creatures, the young man was
not deficient in spirit. What seemed to his more rude and elastic
relative a token of imbecility, was nothing more than the softening
influence of his reflective and mental over his physical powers.
These, under the excitement of his blood were necessarily made
subject to his animal impulses, and when he left the house that
morning, with his Blackstone under his arm, on his way to the
peaceful cottage of old Calvert, where he pursued his studies, his
mind was in a perfect state of chaos. Of the chapter which he had
striven to compass the previous night, in which the rights of persons
are discussed with the usual clearness of style, but the usual
one-sidedness of judgment of that smooth old monarchist, William
Hinkley scarcely remembered a solitary syllable. He had read only
with his eyes. His mind had kept no pace with his proceedings, and
though he strove as he went along to recall the heads of topics,
the points and principles of what he had been reading, his efforts
at reflection, by insensible but sudden transitions, invariably
concluded with some image of strife and commotion, in which he
was one of the parties and Alfred Stevens another; the beautiful,
proud face of Margaret Cooper being always unaccountably present,
and seeming to countenance, with its scornful smiles, the spirit
of strife which operated upon the combatants.

This mood had the most decided effect upon his appearance; and
the good old man, Calvert, whose attention had been already drawn
to the condition of distress and suffering which he manifested,
was now more than ever struck with the seemingly sudden increase
of this expression upon his face. It was Saturday--the saturnalia
of schoolboys--and a day of rest to the venerable teacher. He was
seated before his door, under the shadows of his paternal oak,
once more forgetting the baffled aims and profitless toils of his
own youthful ambition, in the fascinating pages of that historical
romancer the stout Abbe Vertot. But a glance at the youth soon
withdrew his mind from this contemplation, and the sombre pages of
the present opened upon his eye, and the doubtful ones of the future
became, on the instant, those which he most desired to peruse.

The study of the young is always a study of the past with the
old. They seem, in such a contemplation, to live over the records
of memory. They feel as one just returning from a long and weary
journey, who encounters another, freshly starting to traverse the
same weary but inviting track. Something in the character of William
Hinkley, which seemed to resemble his own, made this feeling yet
more active in the mind of Mr. Calvert; and his earnest desire was
to help the youth forward on the path which, he soon perceived, it
was destined that the other should finally take. He was not satisfied
with the indecision of character which the youth displayed. But
how could he blame it harshly? It was in this very respect that his
own character had failed, and though he felt that all his counsels
were to be addressed to this point, yet he knew not where; or in
what manner, to begin. The volume of Blackstone which the youth
carried suggested to him a course, however. He bade the young man
bring out a chair, and taking the book in his hand, he proceeded
to examine him upon parts of the volume which he professed to have
been reading.

This examination, as it had the effect of compelling the mind
of the student to contract itself to a single subject of thought,
necessarily had the further effect of clearing it somewhat from
the chaos of clouds which had been brooding over it, obscuring
the light, and defeating the warmth of the intellectual sun behind
them; and if the examination proved the youth to have been very
little of a student, or one who had been reading with a vacant
mind, it also proved that the original powers of his intellect
were vigorous and various--that he had an analytical capacity of
considerable compass; was bold in opinion, ingenious in solution,
and with a tendency to metaphysical speculation, which, modified by
the active wants and duties of a large city-practice, would have
made him a subtle lawyer, and a very logical debater. But the blush
kept heightening on the youth's cheeks as the examination proceeded.
He had answered, but he felt all the while how much his answer had
sprung from his own conjectures and how little from his authorities.
The examination convinced him that the book had been so much
waste-paper under his thumb. When it was ended the old man closed
the volume, laid it on the sward beside him, and looked, with
a mingled expression of interest and commiseration, on his face.
William Hinkley noted this expression, and spoke, with a degree
of mortification in look and accent, which he did not attempt to
hide:--

"I am afraid, sir, you will make nothing of me. I can make nothing
of myself. I am almost inclined to give up in despair. I will be
nothing--I can be nothing. I feared as much from the beginning,
sir. You only waste your time on me."

"You speak too fast, William--you let your blood mingle too much
with your thoughts. Let me ask you one question. How long will
you be content to live as you do now--seeking nothing--performing
nothing--being nothing?"

The youth was silent.

"I, you see, am nothing," continued the old man--"nay, do not
interrupt me. You will tell me, as you have already told me, that
I am much, and have done much, here in Charlemont. But, for all that
I am, and have done here, I need not have gone beyond my accidence.
My time has been wasted; my labors, considered as means to ends,
were unnecessary; I have toiled without the expected profits of
toil; I have drawn water in a sieve. It is not pleasant for me to
recall these things, much less to speak of them; but it is for your
good that I told you my story. You have, as I had, certain defects
of character--not the same exactly, but of the same family complexion.
To be something, you must be resolved. You must devote yourself,
heart and mind, with all your soul and with all your strength, to
the business you have undertaken. Shut your windows against the
sunshine, your ears to the song of birds, your heart against the
fascinations of beauty; and if you never think of the last until
you are thirty, you will be then a better judge of beauty, a truer
lover, a better husband, a more certain candidate for happiness.
Let me assure you that, of the hundred men that take wives before
they are thirty, there is scarcely one who, in his secret soul, does
not repent it--scarcely one who does not look back with yearning
to the days when he was free."

There was a pause. The young man became very much agitated. He rose
from his chair, walked apart for a few moments, and then, returning,
resumed his seat by the old man.

"I believe you are right, sir--nay, I know you are; but I can not
be at once--I can not promise--to be all that you wish. If Margaret
Cooper would consent, I would marry her to-morrow."

The old man shook his head, but remained silent. The young one
proceeded:--

"One thing I will say, however: I will take to my studies after
this week, whatever befalls, with the hearty resolution which you
recommend. I will try to shut out the sunshine and the song. I
will endeavor to devote soul and strength, and heart and mind,
to the task before me. I KNOW that I can master these studies--I
think I can"--he continued, more modestly, modifying the positive
assertion--"and I know that it is equally my interest and duty to
do so. I thank you sir, very much for what you have told me. Believe
me, it has not fallen upon heedless or disrespectful ears."

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